Passing the Bamboo Grove (1868–1912): Art, History and Details

Passing the Bamboo Grove (1868–1912) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Suzuki Harunobu (Japanese, 1724–1770).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The young woman in this print likely stands in for Meng Zong, one of the Chinese Twenty Four Paragons of Filial Piety. Legend has it he went out in the dead of winter to dig bamboo shoots for his aged parents. Harunobu designed a calendar print for the year 1765 with a more explicit allusion to the theme. It shows a young woman actively digging for bamboo shoots. The first state of this print was privately issued as a calendar print for 1766, with the months of the year depicted in the woman's sash. It was illegal to sell any type of calendar without a government license, and a second state with the calendar replaced with a checked pattern was produced so that the print could be sold commercially. This print is several centimeters taller than the original, which together with its bright colors, indicates that it is a later reproduction.

Object facts

• Title: Passing the Bamboo Grove
• Date: 1868–1912
• Creator attribution: Suzuki Harunobu (Japanese, 1724–1770)
• Culture: Japan, Meiji period (1868–1912)
• Type: Print
• Technique: color woodblock print
• Dimensions: Sheet: 34.7 x 21.3 cm (13 11/16 x 8 3/8 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1930.176

Collection credit

Bequest of Edward L. Whittemore

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.